#81 in Adventure
The Crystal Shard
- 344
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Our view
“The Crystal Shard” is fast, straightforward, classic fantasy adventure, and its characters are its real strength. Salvatore’s first published novel brings together companions who have little in common and lets loyalty and self-sacrifice do the rest. The prose is simple and quick; some readers find the world unoriginal and the book lighter fare than more recent fantasy. It opens “The Icewind Dale Trilogy” and serves well as a first meeting with Drizzt.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Crystal Shard is a 1988 fantasy novel by American writer R. A. Salvatore. The first book in The Icewind Dale Trilogy, it was his first published novel.
Reading order · The Icewind Dale Trilogy
Full order & progress →- The Crystal ShardThis book
7.97.9 / 10 - Streams of Silver
7.97.9 / 10 - The Halfling's Gem
7.97.9 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.8 across 333 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 69% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Adventure average of 7.8. That is how 7.9 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.8 | 53 | 16% |
| Hardcover | 7.8 | 280 | 84% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Crystal Shard?
It has 344 pages — shorter than 90% of the ranked books in Adventure.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Adventure — with scores between 7.6 and 8.4, closest to this book.
